The Glue
by bpfish
Summary: Lucy gets thrown into the world of SHIELD and, later, into the Avengers team. Nick Fury begins to call her the glue since everyone seems to gain an attachment to her. However, when she runs into Loki, will she learn something about her blurry past? Rated T just because...
1. Chapter 1

My eyes opened and I saw wreckage everywhere. I sat up, wincing at the sharp pains in my head. I blinked until my vision cleared. I couldn't remember where I was. It looked like a lab...

_"Lucy, this is going to be dangerous. Are you absolutely sure that you want to help with this?"_

_"I'm sure. You picked me for this internship for a reason, right? I'm not about to back down now."_

_"I didn't pick you, you asserted yourself. You specifically told me that if I didn't pick you that you were going to go blab to the world about my experiment."_

_"True, but you've accepted me. Can we start?"_

_"I suppose so. Betty, make sure she's out of harm's way before you give me the signal."_

_"Bruce, calm down. She'll be fine."_

"The experiment," I whispered to myself. It must've gone terribly wrong. The lab was a wreck and everyone was gone. I was alone.

Just then I heard a moan. I looked around and saw a fallen table. Very carefully, in case I'd broken something and couldn't feel it, I crawled over. Betty was lying there in a pool of blood.

Now, blood didn't bother me at all, but I thought that she was going to die. I instantly freaked out, but tried to think clearly.

"Betty?"

Her eyes fluttered open. "Lucy? Oh, thank god. Are you alright? Is anything broken?"

She tried to get up, but winced and laid back down. "Stay still. I'll come to you."

I crawled over to her and started to take in her wounds. She smiled, happy that I'd learned something from her. "Are you feeling alright? Exactly where does it hurt?"

"My head feels like I was thrown into a wall," she said. I checked her head as she continued. "And...and m-my..."

"What's wrong?" I asked, panic clear in my voice. She didn't answer and I saw her eyes go blank. I thought she was dead and started having a full on panic attack. "Betty?!"

The lights began to flicker and the ones closest to me exploded. I shrieked and covered Betty as the glass headed for us.

"Is someone there?" I heard someone call out.

"Yes!" I cried out, choking back sobs. "Help me, please!"

General Ross appeared in the doorway. I'd completely forgotten that he was here too. When he saw Betty his eyes widened. "Is she..."

"I don't know. We need to call an ambulance," I said. "Do you remember what happened?"

He nodded solemnly. "I'm not sure that you want to know."

"Please tell me."

"Alright, fine. But I'm only giving you the basics. When we turned on the gamma machine, everything was going fine until we put the power at full capacity, like Bruce told us to. It was too much for him and he turned into this...green beast. Betty tried to hold you back, but you ran in and tried to stop him. He swiped you out of the way. You were lucky though because he hadn't fully transformed yet. If he had, he probably would've killed you. Betty was turning off the machine when the beast reached her. He didn't push her nearly as hard, but she still cracked her head open on the doorframe. I had managed to get down, but the beast threw me into the next room. I'm lucky that I'm merely scratched up. Then the beast ran out."

My eyes filled with tears. "So I was in the room with the machine on full blast? How come I'm not a beast too?"

"Let's worry about that later and get her to a hospital first," he said nodding at Betty. He pulled out his phone and called 911. He told them where we were and then hung up. "The ambulance is on its way."


	2. Chapter 2

When the ambulance arrived, I was pulled inside and given oxygen. I pushed the EMTs away. "I'm fine! Get her!"

They insisted that I should have a little of the oxygen, and I told them that I would once they got Betty inside the ambulance. They relented and got her in first. Then they handed me the mask and I breathed it in for a few blocks.

"Alright, you can stop now," the nice EMT in the back said, holding the mask over Betty's mouth. She was still alive, which was a huge relief for me. "Now, when we get to the hospital, a nurse is going to check you over just to make sure your vitals are good. Will you let her help you?"

"As long as she is-"

"We've got people on standby waiting for her," the EMT said. She gave me a soft smile. "I admire that you want her to be taken care of first though. Don't lose that trait."

"I won't."

The second we pulled into the hospital parking lot I was whisked away into my own room. A nurse began checking me over. Everything was going fine until she took my temperature. "You're at 92.7. Are you sure you feel alright?"

"Yeah. I've always had a colder temperature," I answered breezily. "It should be in my file."

The nurse gave me a funny look but read my file and nodded. "Yes, but it's not normal."

"I know. I had to go through a lot of tests when I was younger. The doctors never found anything wrong with me, so eventually they just accepted that I had a lower temperature."

"Alright. Let me check your heartbeat," she said, getting out her stethoscope. As soon as she had it over my heart, her eyes widened. The longer she listened, the more freaked out her expression got.

Panic began to set in. "What is it?!"

"Your heartbeat. It's at 200 beats per minute. It should be impossible for you to be conscious right now," she said, staring at me. Then she glanced at my file. "This has your last measured heart rate at 70 beats per minute."

My panic increased and I could feel my heart racing faster. The gamma radiation had done something to me, I could feel it.

As I continued to freak out, the lights started flashing again. I quickly learned that they were flashing with my rapid breathing. _I_ was the one making the lights flash. With that realization, my panic increased tenfold and the lights in the room exploded. The nurse screamed and fainted.

**Three hours later...**

I sat in my room, staring out the window. The nurse had told the doctors what was going on and they'd made a few calls. I figured that it was only a few minutes until I was carted off to a psych ward. Then I heard a knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened and a man wearing a suit walked in. He walked over to me and looked me up and down. I hated being analyzed.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," I snapped, cranky at being locked in here for three hours.

The man smiled a bit. "My name is Agent Phil Coulson. I'm with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. The doctors called us. We take in the different people in society. The ones that don't quite fit in."

I nodded. "Right. So now that I'm a freak, I have to go to the psych ward with the long and complicated name."

"Lucille-"

"It's Lucy. I _hate_ my full name."

"Alright. Lucy, we aren't a psych ward. In fact, we're far from it. I guess you could call us a training facility. And we train people to deal with the strange and unknown circumstances so that the rest of the world doesn't need to worry about anything. Did you hear about Iron Man?" He asked me.

I nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Tony Stark is pretty cool. I wish I had the genius to be able to escape a kidnapping like that. All I can do is hack computers...but in a way his suit is like a big computer right? I wonder if I could-"

"You can hack computers?" He asked, sounding impressed.

"Definitely. I started hacking into programs when I was six. I've been way too attached to technology since. One time I even managed to shut down our schools broadcasting system. The principal sounded like he was Darth Vader for a month. It was so funny...and they never figured out it was me!" I said, reminiscing. Agent Coulson looked amused. "Don't tell anyone that."

"I won't, but we could definitely use your skills. And we can teach you to control your new...ability." He said, making sure he used the right words.

I raised an eyebrow. "What ability. My super fast heart rate?"

"No. The exploding lights thing."

I bit my lip. "Do I get to live there? And what about school?"

"We'll take care of everything. What do you say?"

"I'll do it."


	3. Chapter 3

**Two Years Later**

"Dr. Selvig, Sparks! What's going on here?" Fury barked as he walked into the lab.

"The Tesseract...she's misbehaving." Selvig said, trying to lighten up the situation. He and Fury began talking, but I zapped up to where Agent Barton was sitting.

He didn't even move. I sat next to him, my feet dangling off the ledge. "I don't understand why it's doing this. I tried to read the energy field, but it seemed...distant. Definitely not human."

Barton nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Fury called us down. He looked at me first. "Did you figure out anything?"

"Whatever is going on, it's happening from a long distance away. And the reading I were getting weren't natural, even electrical really. It's not human, but that's all I could get," I explained.

Fury nodded. "I want you to evacuate now."

"What?! But I-"

The look he gave me was enough. I nodded and zapped out of the building, out to the truck that I knew wouldn't leave until Coulson was out. I figured that he'd know something and I was hoping that I could get it out of him.

I kept my focus on the lab. After a few minutes, I felt the energy field change. It was much more powerful than it had been before. Yet, it seemed strangely familiar. I focused in on it, trying to decipher what that meant, when Coulson jumped in the car. "Drive."

The car took off, shaking my concentration. I tried to focus on it again, and was nearly there, when the energy exploded outwards. The ripple made the car jump and I grabbed onto Coulson for support.

We both watched as almost the entire HQ was sucked into a sinkhole. The only true home I ever knew was gone. I bit my lip and looked at Coulson, who was answering his cell phone. I only tuned in when he said, "What do we do?"

He nodded and then hung up. I looked at him with earnest eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"Today is your lucky day. Fury says that we need protection, so he's activating the Avengers Initiative." He told me.

"The what?"

Coulson looked confused. "Weren't you told about that?"

"Nope." I said, popping the "p".

"Well, the Avengers Initiative was created after the Thor incident. He proved that there was other lifeforms out there, ones that had us outgunned. We wanted to bring together a group of people that could possibly have a chance at fighting these lifeforms," he explained. "There were six people originally. Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton were the first picked because of their partnership and skill set."

I snorted. "They were picked because you wanted SHIELD eyes on the inside."

Coulson ignored my comment, which meant that I was right, and continued. "Then we decided on Stark. His knowledge of tech and his suit gave him a fighting chance. After him was Banner. We still don't exactly know what the Hulk can and can't take."

I nodded. "I've never even seen it bleed."

"Exactly. When the Thor incident came about and we discovered that Thor was a friendly, we decided to include him. He has more knowledge of the other worlds than we do. And last year, after they found Rogers, Fury decided that he should be in the program too. His serum gives him a better chance than both Barton and Romanoff." He said, stopping. Then he turned to me. "And just now, Fury decided to include you."

"Me?! Why?"

"Because you were right. You told him the force that you felt wasn't human and that it was from a long distance away."

"Wait-what exactly happened in there?"

"Fury said that it was Loki, Thor's brother. He used the Tesseract to make a portal to our world. He killed all but a few agents in there-the only ones he spared were ones that he took with him. Dr. Selvig and Agent Barton were taken."

"Clint would never go willingly with someone like that." I protested.

Coulson nodded. "He's been compromised."

Anger clouded my thoughts. "Loki's gonna get what's coming to him."

"So you're accepting?"

"Of course. We need to get Barton back."

"Good," Coulson said, happy that I'd agreed. "We're rendezvousing on the Helicarrier. Everyone should be there by tomorrow. I want you to go there now and tell everyone that the Initiative has been activated and they should get ready for some guests."

"Alright. What are you going to do?"

"I've got some people to round up."


	4. Chapter 4

When I arrived at the Helicarrier, many of the agents looked worried. Surely they'd heard about the incident at HQ, and they probably all knew that I was here with some sort of answer. Instead of worrying about the lower level agents now, I marched in to the control tower.

Everyone looked up when I walked in, listening. "Alright. I know that you were all expecting Fury, or a higher ranking agent, but they sent me since I could get here the fastest. Coulson told me to tell all of you that the Initiative is being activated."

It was silent for all of one second before the hustle and bustle started. The people next to me began discussing someone named Jane Foster, but I didn't worry about it. Instead, I went to the room that I knew was prepared for me and called Coulson.

"Done already?" He asked when he picked up.

"Yeah. The second I told everyone they began scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off. What do you want me to do now?"

"Well, I'm on my way to get Stark. And...Agent Romanoff is headed to get Banner."

"Coulson, I'm fine. I know that he ran because he was scared that he'd hurt everyone again. I'm going to be glad to see him again. We can really use his brain...and if he decides to help with the battle that I'm sure is coming then that's good too."

"Right. As for what you should do now...train a little. I know you've been waiting to do it on the Helicarrier, and it's best to have all of our Agents in top shape."

I squealed internally. "Thanks Coulson! You're the best!"

I hung up and ran to the training center, a happy smile on my face. The agents that I passed in the hallway looked relieved that they weren't currently where I was headed.

When I opened the doors to the training center, the few inside looked up and groaned. I rolled my eyes and said, "I'm not going electric today. Relax."

Even still, no one stepped forward to pair with me. I hadn't expected anyone to and headed over to the gymnastics mat.

After a few hours, I decided that I'd had enough. Someone had eventually let me beat them into a pulp. The guy was a newbie and had actually thought he could beat me. One of the older agents tried to tell him otherwise, but the guy was a cocky little shit. Not anymore.

"I'm exhausted. Later boys," I called out, tossing my hair over my shoulder and walking out into the hallway. I took the stairs to my room and showered quickly. When I came back out of the shower, Coulson was sitting on my bed. Boy was he lucky that I got dressed in there first.

"Couldn't get Stark?" I asked.

Coulson gave me a look. "He'll come around. He can't resist the spotlight."

"Is Natasha back yet?"

"Not yet," he answered. "Probably not until tomorrow afternoon. Did you train?"

"Oh, yes I did. The new guy will probably hurt for a while. He thought he could be me for two reasons: because I'm a girl and because I'm young. I showed him just how wrong he was, on behalf of Natasha."

Coulson smiled. "That's my girl. Now, get some sleep. I want you at your best tomorrow."

"Alright _Dad_." I said, smiling as I said it. Coulson simply rolled his eyes and walked out. I pulled out my laptop and booted it up. I easily hacked the SHIELD interface and found the file that they had on Loki. It was very incomplete, but it was something.

**Name: Loki Laufeyson**

**Age:?**

**Related to Thor Odinson**

**Hides behind magic and illusion and words...maybe he can't fight?**

_That's all they have on him?_ I thought to myself. _And there is no way that he can't fight. He grew up alongside Thor and from what I've heard, Thor is a warrior. He prefers magic and illusion._

I edited the file, even though I knew that it would get me in trouble with Fury. He hated when I did this because it was impossible for him to lock me out. I always found a way in.

"There." I said to myself. Then I put my computer away and flicked my light off. My clock read 12:02. I groaned, not having noticed how late it was. Oh well, I didn't need that much sleep anyway. My head hit the pillow and I was out like a light.


	5. Chapter 5

My eyes popped open at 6am the next morning. All agents were trained to get up early, unless they had a night shift. I was ready for the day in less than 5 minutes-another thing agents were trained to do.

I quickly made my way to the training room to give myself a wakeup call. There wasn't anyone in there yet, but because of the Initiative being activated they probably all had duties. Since I was in the Initiative and hadn't gotten anything to do yet, I assumed that I'd be alone for the first hour. I headed for the gymnastics mats again, stretching lightly to warm up.

After a half an hour, the door opened again. I looked over to see who it was and saw that it was none other than Captain America.** (A/N: I changed it around to fit my story. Instead of coming in when he does in the movie, he came in the night before.)** He headed over to the boxing station and began pounding away on one of the bags. I quietly headed over to him, seeing if I could sneak up on him.

When I was directly behind him, I whispered, "They're here."

He whirled on me and sent a punch flying at my face. My reflexes weren't fast enough, but my powers were.

"Gah!" He cried in pain, grabbing his hand.

My eyes widened. Coulson was going to kill me for hurting his hero. "OhmygodI'msosorry!"

The Captain looked up at me, wincing. "What is that?"

He was pointing at the shield that I had up. I grinned sheepishly and took it down. "My shield. It's faster than my reflexes. I didn't mean for that to happen I just wanted to see if I could sneak up on you and scare you. Now I can say that I scared the mighty Captain America."

"And burned his hand," he said, cradling it. When I went to apologize again, he waved it off. "Don't worry, it'll be healed in a few minutes. It's a good thing I had the hand tape on or it would've been worse."

I nodded. "By the way, my name is Lucy. Lucy Sparks."

"Steve Rogers," he said, shaking my hand. "What is it that you can do exactly?"

"I'm still not sure what my limits are, but I can control electricity," I started. "I can send out little, or big, shocks at people. One time I accidentally put a guy in a coma for a week. There's also teleporting, but I call it zapping because it seems like a more appropriate name. And just last week I learned that I can make myself completely electric. It looks so cool."

"So your power goes with your name?" He said, smiling.

I blushed a little. "Yeah. Everyone goes for that joke right away. It's ironic, but it fits."

"Do they call you Sparks then?" He asked, looking at me with genuine interest.

I smiled at him. "No, they don't. Since I'm the youngest agent here, they've taken to calling me Agent Kid."

"What would you like them to call you?" He said, eyebrows raising.

I shrugged. "I don't really know. I've been trying to come up with a cool name, but there aren't really that many. I'll know it when I hear it, but Agent Kid is fine for now."

"Agent Sparks, report to the deck." My comm unit said in Coulson's voice. "And bring Rogers with you."

"He didn't call you Agent Kid." Steve commented as we began walking toward the door.

"The only reason he didn't call me Agent Kid is because he is the only one that appreciates that I'm here. Coulson has had me under his wing since I joined SHIELD. He's been like a father to me..."

"Excuse me for prying, but what happened to your real father?" Steve asked, blushing a little. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. Everyone asks once they find out," I said, waving it off. "I never knew my father. My mother said that he was different than other men. When I asked her what she meant, she would clam up. Speaking of my mother, she died when I was young."

We walked out onto the deck as I said this. Natasha had said something to Coulson, who gave us a head nod but hurried past us to the bridge. Natasha walked over to us. "You must be Steve Rogers. I'm Natasha Romanoff."

"Nice to meet you ma'am," he said, shaking her hand.

Natasha looked at me next. "Nice to see you Lucy. Have you gotten stronger since I last saw you?"

"A lot stronger. Wait until you see what I can do," I said, grinning at her. Steve looked back and forth between us, trying to decipher our conversation.

Then he looked up and walked forward. "Dr. Banner!" I turned around and found myself staring into the eyes of the man who had changed my life.


	6. Chapter 6

"Yeah, hi," Bruce said, shaking his hand. "They told me you'd be coming."

"Word is you can find the Cube," Steve said, letting go of his hand and looking him straight in the eyes.

"Is that the only word on me?" Bruce said, looking around nervously.

Steve smiled. "Only word I care about."

"Must be strange for you, all of this," Bruce said, gesturing to his surroundings. I noticed that he was deliberately not making eye contact with me. I just waiting, knowing that I could corner him later.

Steve looked to the men running laps. "Well, this is actually kind of familiar."

Natasha interrupted their moment. "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

Then we heard the PA system. "Flight crew, secure the deck."

"Is this a submarine?" Steve said, looking a little confused.

"Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurized, metal container?" Bruce said as he and Steve walked closer to the edge to see what was going on. They both backed up as the turbines powered up and we started to lift into the air. "No, no, this is much worse."

Natasha took that moment to gesture for the men to follow her. She lead them onto the bridge, me trailing behind them. When we got there, Steve looked around, impressed, but Bruce walked toward the door, turning around when he saw the guards there.

Fury oversaw that takeoff was successful and then turned around to the new arrivals. "Gentlemen."

Steve pulled out a few bills from his wallet and handed Fury ten dollars. I tilted my head confused, but Fury had the slightest smile on his face. Then he walked over to Bruce. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

Bruce took Fury's outstretched hand and shook it. "Thank you for asking nicely. So, um, how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind," Fury replied.

Bruce began to walk away. "Where are you with that?"

Fury pointed to Coulson, who crossed his arms. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops...if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

While he was speaking, my eyes flashed to Natasha who had knelt down to a screen with Clint's stats on it. Then she looked up. "That's still not going to find them in time."

"You have to narrow your field," Bruce said, jumping into the conversation. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?"

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays," Bruce began, shrugging off his jacket. I could tell that he was getting in his zone. "I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Fury turned around, looking at me for a minute before his eyes switched to Natasha. "Agent Romanoff, could you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"

"You're going to love it Doc, we got all the toys." She said, leading him down the hall.

I turned to Fury. "Why didn't you make me do it? I know you were thinking about it."

"I want Dr. Banner to feel comfortable first. If that means no interaction with you for a few hours, then so be it." He said, walking away.

I bit my lip. I'd never wanted him to be uncomfortable. Actually, I was happy to see him, it meant that he hadn't gotten himself killed. I didn't know if he could actually die or not because of his condition, but it was a possibility.

"We got a hit. A 67% match," one of the agents said. "Wait. Cross match, 79%."

Coulson walked over. "Location?"

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Königstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

"Captain," Fury said, making Steve turn around. "You're up."

Steve nodded and walked off. I began to follow him when Fury stopped me. "I want you to stay here. Go see Dr. Banner and try and make peace with him."

I nodded. "Are you sure that's what you want me to do? I mean, I can help with Loki-"

"No. Stay here," Fury said before walking away again.

My lower lip jutted out. I knew that I'd just joined the team and all, but I still wanted to help. And I knew that I _could_ help. My gut told me that there was a different reason that Fury didn't want me to go and I vowed that I was going to find out. No matter what it took.


	7. Chapter 7

When I arrived outside Bruce's lab, I took a deep breath before entering. I carefully walked in without making a sound, just as I'd been taught. The door closed, hissing shut which made Bruce turn around.

"Hello Lucy," He said, looking anywhere but my face.

I gave him a smile that he didn't see and tried to sound as bright as possible. "Hi Bruce."

There was an awkward silence between us. When Bruce finally spoke, everything came out at once. "Lucy, I never meant for you to get hurt. I thought that the experiment would go off without a hitch. I was wrong. I'm sorry for hurting you and if you never want to talk to me again then-"

"Never want to talk to you again?" I interrupted. "Bruce, you are the only one that managed to get me a home. When SHIELD took me in, I felt like there was finally a place that people respected me. The abilities were just a bonus."

"Abilities?" He asked, fear etched on his face.

"You don't know, do you?" I asked him. He shook his head. "After the accident, you knocked me into the room. Then you went after Betty and General Ross, leaving me on top of the table. The gamma was still going full blast." Bruce's eyes widened. "Don't worry, I don't turn into a Hulk. I can do stuff with electricity."

"What kind of stuff?" He asked tentatively.

I smiled. "Let me show you."

None of the machines were on yet, so I flicked my wrist. Everything came on at once, at full power. I flicked it again and they all shut off. Bruce smiled, but I held up a hand. "That's nowhere near all of it."

For the next five minutes, I demonstrated everything I'd learned to do. When I finished, Bruce said, "So you're not mad at me?"

"How could I be mad at you? I'm a superhero!" I said, grinning at him. "And, actually, there's one more thing that I've been working on, but I can't get it fully down yet. I've been trying to fully become electric, but so far I can only get half of my body that way. Want me to show you?"

"Only if it won't hurt you."

I nodded and closed my eyes in concentration. I slowly breathed in and out like Coulson had taught me, focusing on my goal. When I heard Bruce gasp I opened my eyes. My top half was electric, but my legs were still there. I changed back and Bruce had a shocked expression on his face.

"I don't really understand the physics of that yet, but it's cool, isn't it?" I asked him.

He gave me a smile and walked over. I opened my arms and he gave me a big hug. "I'm glad that you can accept yourself. I'm still learning how to do that."

I hugged him back as tightly as I could. "Don't worry. I'll help you. But, first, shouldn't we get started on locating the Cube?"

Bruce nodded and we got to work. He gave me the easy job-all I had to do was read equations to him while he tinkered with one of the machines. Two hours later, nature called. "Bruce, I'll be right back. Bathroom break."

He nodded. I could tell he'd only been half listening so I zapped myself to the bathroom. I appeared in front of the sink and looked at myself in the mirror, a bad habit of mine. For a moment, my green eyes seemed to glow, but I ignored it. It had to just be the lighting in here.

I finished my business quickly and zapped back into the lab. Bruce was looking out the glass window, glasses off. I turned and saw Loki being escorted in. When he saw me, there was a flash of something in his eyes, but I couldn't quite place what it was. Recognition? Fear? Why a Norse God would be scared of me, I had no idea.

My comm went off in my ear. "Lucy, please come to the conference room. Bring Dr. Banner with you."

"Come on, Bruce. We're wanted in the conference room."


	8. Chapter 8

Bruce sighed, but followed me down the hall. When we entered the conference room, Natasha, Steve, and a blonde were in there. I assumed the blonde was Thor, as I knew what Tony looked like. Everyone was watching the screens, which showed Loki and Fury. It seemed as if they were having a battle with words.

When I tuned in, Loki was chuckling. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," was Fury's retort.

"Oh, I've heard," Loki said, turning toward the camera. He seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place what it was. "A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man."

There was a quick glance between Natasha and Bruce. I rubbed Bruce's arm, trying to give him the comfort I knew he needed. Then Loki began again. "How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" Fury said, his voice rising slightly. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Ooh," Loki said, his face contorting. "It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is."

"Well, let me know if real power wants a magazine or something." Fury said, before walking away.

There was silence in the conference room before Bruce spoke up. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve said, getting straight to work. I turned to him, smiling a little when I saw him in his uniform. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asguard, nor any world known," Thor said, speaking directly to Steve. I hoped it would stay that way. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army. From outer space." Steve said.

Bruce took off his glasses and stepped forward. "So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor questioned.

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some sort of spell, along with one of ours." Natasha said, speaking up.

Steve butted in. "I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce said. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asguard. And he is my brother." Thor said, defending him.

It was interesting, really. Even with all the bad things Loki had done, Thor still defended him and called him brother.

"He killed 80 people in two days."

"He's adopted."

Again with the defense. It wasn't as strong this time, but I wondered what made Thor love his brother so much.

"I think it's about the mechanics," Bruce said, speaking up again. Natasha shot me a look, wondering why I wasn't speaking. I simply shook my head. "Iridium...What do they need iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," I heard from behind me. I turned and saw Tony walking in with Coulson. They quickly finished up their conversation before Tony turned his attention back to us. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD."

"No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing," Tony said, patting Thor on the arm as he walked by. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

Then Tony walked into Fury's spot. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails." A few agents looked up, but Natasha and I rolled our eyes. "That man is playing Galaga. He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." Then he covered an eye. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns." Hill said, sounding completely done with Tony's shit.

He made a face. "Sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked Tony.

"Last night," he told her. She gave him a look and he continued. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Steve interrupted Tony's rant. "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

"He would have to heat the Cube to 120-million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce commented.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked, voicing what the rest of us were thinking.

Tony ignored him and headed for Bruce. "It's nice to meet you Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce clenched his jaw. "Thanks."

Just then, Fury walked in. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"I'd start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve suggested.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube." Fury told us. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Thor looked utterly confused. "Monkeys? I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve said excitedly. Tony rolled his eyes. "I understood that reference."

"Shall we play Doctor?" Tony asked. I could tell he was itching to get away from the 'non-geniuses'.

Bruce gestured toward the door. "This way sir."

They left the room and I followed quickly, not wanting to talk to Natasha. I had a feeling that Fury was keeping a huge secret from me, and I was hoping I could figure it out. Soon.


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as we entered the lab, Tony and Bruce got to work. Bruce picked up something that would pick up gamma readings and began to run it over Loki's scepter. It began beeping, indicating that there was definitely gamma there.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process." Bruce said.

I hung by the door, feeling useless as Tony began to push a few buttons on one of the computer screens. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around 600 teraflops."

Bruce let out a chuckle. "All I packed was a toothbrush."

Tony laughed. "You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's Candy Land."

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem."

Tony was playing with something he'd picked up off a table. "Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises."

Before I realized what he was going to do, he poked Bruce with his toy. I heard a zapping sound and Bruce yelled, "Ow!"

"Hey!" Steve called from the hallway.

"Nothing?" Tony asked, looking into Bruce's eyes.

"Are you nuts?" Steve asked as he walked in.

Tony barely looked at him. "Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked.

I tried to make myself invisible over by the door. I knew that this was going to turn into an argument very quickly. Tony gestured to Steve with his toy. "Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc."

Bruce stammered. "No, i-it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

"Do you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?" He asked, pointedly looking at me during his last question. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets."

"Yeah. He doesn't even tell the agents everything," I chimed in.

Tony made a gesture that said, 'see?' Then he pointed at Bruce whilst shoving blueberries into his mouth. "And it's bugging him too, isn't it?"

"Uh...I just want to finish my work here, and..."

"Doctor?"

Bruce sighed and took off his glasses. "A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you," he said, pointing at Tony. Tony, listening, held out the blueberries. Bruce took one and continued. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly," Tony turned and gave him a look, "building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc-reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Bruce asked.

"It's just the prototype," Tony answered. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project. I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce said to Steve, trying to prove his point.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony said, pulling his Stark-phone out of his pocket.

Steve looked at him. "I'm sorry, did you say..."

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."

"Following's not really my style." Tony retorted, pushing more blueberries into his mouth.

Steve glared at him. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

"Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?"

"Steve," Bruce cut in, trying to ease the tension. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

He looked at Bruce and Tony, then me. I gave him the most innocent look I could muster. Then he turned back to Tony. "Just find the Cube."


	10. Chapter 10

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony asked. "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"Huh. The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have a jump on us."

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit. It's going to blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does."

"Yeah, I'll read all about it."

"Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Bruce laughed a bit. "You see, I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it," he said, tapping his arc-reactor. "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege."

"But you can control it."

"Because I learned how."

"It's different."

As I watched their banter, I realized something. Tony was trying to help Bruce. He was treating him like a normal person, which was exactly what Bruce needed. Tony wasn't afraid to poke him with things and test him. I smiled, having seen a different side of Tony Stark.

Tony pushed everything Bruce was working on to the side so he could look through the screen at Bruce. "Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk...The other guy saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out."

"You may not enjoy that."

"And you just might," Tony said as he walked back to his machine. After a few seconds, he looked up at me. "Now, what's your story. And who are you?"

"Um, my name is Lucy Sparks." I started.

"Come on, get to the good stuff. Why are you here?" He interrupted.

I got slightly ticked. "_Excuse_ me. You asked me specific questions. I'm going to answer them in the order you asked them."

A smirk flashed across Tony's face. "Well, you're a livewire, aren't you?"

A lightbulb went off in my head. "That's it."

"What's it?"

"I've been trying to think of an alias, and that's perfect! Thank you so much," I said, a smile working its way across my face.

Bruce began to laugh. "That is perfect."

Tony looked completely lost. I began to explain. "I got my abilities the same day Bruce had his...accident. I was observing his experiment, mostly because I'd bugged him enough, so he'd given in. When Bruce transformed, the Hulk ended up knocking me onto the test chair. The gamma rays were still blasting, so I ended up getting about the same amount of radiation that Bruce did."

Tony's eyes widened. "That should've killed you. Half of the radiation that Dr. Banner got should've killed you."

"Well, it didn't," I retorted. "But between the accident and the hospital, my emotions caused the lights to pop out. Coulson came to get me at the hospital. I think the doctors contacted SHIELD. Something about my vitals being wrong. My body temperature was 92.7 and my heartbeat was 200 beats per minute. After that day, SHIELD took me in and taught me how to use my abilities."

"Show me," was all Tony said.

I bit my lip. "On one condition."

"What?"

"You tell me any secrets SHIELD has on me."

"Why?" Bruce asked, brow furrowing.

I took a deep breath. "Because. I've had a sneaking suspicion that Fury has been keeping something from me, and I want to find out what it is. And I'm pretty sure that it has to do with Loki."

"Why would it have anything to do with Loki?" Tony asked.

"Because when he first got here, I was in the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror, my eyes freaking _glowed_. And when I zapped back to the lab, the guards were leading him into his cage. I only saw him for a moment, but something flashed through his eyes. I think it was fear."

Tony gave me a look. "Why would he be scared of you?"

"I have no idea."


	11. Chapter 11

An hour later, Tony looked up from his screen. "Lucy, I think I found something."

I walked over to him to see what it was. I saw my name and a picture of me, electricity flowing around me. "What is it?"

"It's a profile on you, but for some reason, JARVIS can't hack into it," Tony said, frustrated.

"Let me try," I said, pushing Tony out of the way. He started to protest, but I ignored him. My eyes began to glow as I used my abilities to crack the codes surrounding my file. After 30 seconds, the entire file appeared on screen. "Got it."

"How did...but JARVIS couldn't..."

"I can do things JARVIS can't," I snapped. Then I started to read my file aloud. "Agent: Sparks, Lucille Cassidy. Last Known Address: SHIELD HQ. DOB: 3/21/1995."

"Move on to the good stuff!" Tony whined beside me.

"Fine. Race..." I froze, staring at the screen. "No."

"What is it?" Bruce asked, finally coming over.

Tears began to fill my eyes as Tony and Bruce read the screen. They both turned to me, shocked. "Did you know about this?"

"I swear I didn't. I had my suspicions, but I never thought of this," I said through sobs. "I didn't ever think of that."

Just then, Fury walked in. "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?"

"How could you hide this from me!" I shrieked at Fury, pointing at my profile. "Race: half-human and half-frost giant? You knew that Loki was my father and didn't say a word about it? And you decided to bring me in on this mission? Why, did you think he wasn't going to kill his daughter?! Based on the things I've read about him, he wouldn't think twice!"

"We'll talk later," Fury said, brushing me off. "Now, Mr. Stark. What are you doing?"

I stood there, shocked. Fury had known the whole time, hadn't said a word about it, and still refused to acknowledge it? Tears began to fill my eyes again as I reverted to simply observing my surroundings, something I did when I was upset.

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Tony said, shooting me a glance.

Fury glared at him. "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Bruce cut in. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"Yeah, then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss," Tony said. Then the screen in front of him bleeped and he looked at it. "What is 'Phase 2'?"

There was a loud bang and I turned around. Steve had walked in and placed some sort of gun on the table. "Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're making-"

"I'm sorry Nick," Tony cut in, spinning his screen. "What were you lying?"

"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

As Thor and Natasha walked in, Bruce turned to her. "Did you know about this?"

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy," he said, moving over to the screen. I could feel the tension in the room, and I tried to make myself as small as possible. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him," Fury said, pointing at Thor.

Thor looked confused. "Me?"

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor said.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?"

"Oh, so that's why you decided to not tell me about my ancestry," I said sarcastically. "You were hoping that I wouldn't turn out evil, like my father."

It was then that Thor truly looked at me and it hit him full force. "You have the same eyes as my brother."

"Well, yeah. I inherited them," I said, my anger rising. I could hear the buzzing in the air and knew that I needed to calm down. But I couldn't. "Loki is my father, something that Fury has neglected to tell me all these years. What happens if I go off on a rampage? You think I could destroy a small town like _his_ kind?!"

"That's not the only threat," Fury said, explaining. "The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve asked, angry.

Thor butted in. "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."


	12. Chapter 12

"A higher form?"

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark."

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep-"

"Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

Tensions were rising higher now, and I began to panic about the outcome. However, no one seemed to notice the flashing lights in all the arguing.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this."

"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"You treat your champions with such mistrust."

"Are you boys really that naïve? SHIELD monitors potential threats."

"Captain America's on threat watch?"

"We all are."

"Apparently me especially," I grumbled at Fury.

Tony turned to Steve. "Wait, you're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?"

"Stark, so help me god if you make one more wisecrack-"

"Threat! Verbal threat! I feel threatened."

"Show some respect."

"Respect what?"

As everyone argued, I felt a surge of energy. Again, it felt familiar. Then I realized it was coming through Loki's scepter, and that's what was putting everyone on edge.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos?"

"That's his M.O., isn't it?" Bruce cut in. All eyes turned to him. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."

"You need to stay away."

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

"You know damn well why. Back off!"

"I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Tony said without batting an eyelash. Natasha gave a nod that said 'True.'

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself." By now, everyone was avidly watching their argument. "You're not the guy to make a sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

Steve scoffed at him. "Always a way out. You may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

Thor began to laugh. "You people are so petty. And tiny."

"Yeah, this is a team," Bruce said sarcastically.

"Agent Romanoff would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"

"Where? You rented my room," he said, gesturing to the cage that presently held Loki.

"The cell was just in case-"

"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried." Everyone's eyes widened and they stared at Bruce. "I got low. I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"

I watched as Bruce unknowingly picked up the scepter. Fury and Natasha's hands went straight to their guns.

Then Steve spoke. "Dr. Banner, put down the scepter."

Bruce looked surprised at himself, but before anything else could happen, one of the computers began to beep. He put down the scepter as Tony said, "Got it."

"Sorry kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all." Bruce said as he walked over to the computer. Natasha followed him. Everyone began to speak at once again.

"You located the Tesseract?"

"I could get there fastest."

"The Tesseract belongs on Asguard. No human is a match for it."

"You're not going alone." Steve said, grabbing Tony's arm.

Tony pushed him off. "You're gonna stop me?"

"Put on the suit and let's find out."

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."

"Put on the suit."

"Oh, my god." Bruce said, interrupting their fighting. Then the explosion went off.


	13. Chapter 13

After the explosion, I was knocked out into the hallway. Still angry that Fury hadn't addressed my...issue, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I zapped to my room and put on my suit-black and gold, made so that I wouldn't shock anyone unless I meant to. Then I stormed down to where Loki was being kept.

There weren't any agents guarding him since everyone was scrambling around, trying to figure out where the explosion had come from and who had done it. I quickly unlocked the door and walked in. Loki looked up as soon as I came in.

"You knew, didn't you?" I asked, walking up so that we were face-to-face. "You've known this entire time, haven't you?!"

He simply nodded. Rage grew inside me. "Why didn't my mother tell me?"

"Because she wasn't your real mother," he said.

My heartbeat quickened. "What?"

"She wasn't your real mother. Your birth mother's name is...was Maria Stark," he said, a vile grin on his face. "Of course, when you were conceived, she didn't consent to it, but there was no way that she was going to kill an unborn child. You're the glue that keeps Fury's little team together. Without you, the whole team will fall apart."

As he said this, his cage door began to open. I took a step back, completely afraid of what he was going to do. Instead all he did was smirk and say, "Nice to see that you've grown up."

"That's all you're going to say. No, 'you're coming with me' or anything like that?" I asked.

"No. You'll default to me soon enough, when your entire team turns against you. What are they going to think when their newest team member is their villain's daughter? And when they think that you came down here to release me because I'm the only family you have left?" He said, grinning at me.

He was using me to break apart the team. I couldn't be in here or everyone would think that what he said was true. But there was one more thing that I _had_ to know. "Did you ever love me? Your only daughter? I don't remember you visiting."

Loki froze at the threshold of his cage. He looked at me carefully, unsure. "Yes. I visited you once, three months after you'd been released from the hospital. You were lying in your crib, asleep. When I showed up, you must've sensed it because you opened your eyes and looked straight at me. You have my eyes, but your mother's spitfire personality."

I nodded as he walked up to me and put his hand on my cheek. "I _do_ love you. You're my only weakness."

I nodded and zapped out of the room and onto the bridge. It was chaotic. Fury and Hill were trying to shoot the hostiles. I looked around, trying to spot someone out of uniform, but everyone was wearing their SHIELD issued uniform.

Fury spotted me looking around. "Research Level 4!"

I nodded and zapped away. When I got down there, the Hulk was throwing Thor around like a rag doll. Thor looked like he was getting tired, so I decided to get the Hulk's attention. "Hey! Over here!"

The Hulk roared and came after me. I began zapping around to the places he wasn't, making him chase me around. At the same time, I was also trying to get through to Bruce. "Bruce. I. Know. You're. In. There. Try. To. Dig. Yourself. Out!"

All of a sudden, the Hulk stopped. I stayed far enough away, but looked into his eyes. They were beginning to turn brown, but then a spray of bullets broke the window. Thor dove across the room to get to his hammer, but I was right in the line of fire! I let out a shriek and tried to zap over to Thor, but a few bullets grazed my skin.

The Hulk looked at me, and then turned and let out a roar. He jumped out and landed on the jet, his weight causing it to begin to spin out. The last I saw of him, the Hulk was ripping wires out of the jet.

Thor helped me up. "Are you alright, tiny human?"

"Yeah," I said, adrenaline covering up the pain. "But call me Livewire."

"I have to go talk to my brother-your father. Would you like to come with me?" He asked.

I shook my head. "No. I'm going to see if I can help on the bridge at all. Good luck though."

"Same to you." He said, and then we went our separate directions. I quickly zapped to the bridge to find the same chaos.

Fury and the rest of the agents seemed to have gotten most of the hostiles, but then I saw arrows coming through one of the open areas above. I figured it was Hawkeye, but before I could do anything, Fury sent a few bullets up there.

All of the screens began to go dark. I looked at Fury. "What happened?"

"It looks like a Virus Arrow, sir," Hill said.

"Now who on Earth could've helped him make a Virus Arrow? I know that it wasn't cleared by me." Fury said.

I winced. "That'd be me, sir. In my defense, I didn't think he'd be using it on us."

"Engine One is now in shut down."


	14. Chapter 14

"Why would you-never mind. Is there any way that _you_ can fix our systems?" Fury asked me.

I shook my head. "No. We made it so there was absolutely _nothing_ that could reverse its effects until the damage was done. It was sort of made so that there was one thing that neither Tony nor I could fix."

"Why would you make it so that you couldn't fix it?!" Fury said, clearly exasperated.

"I was trying to think of all possible scenarios. _This_ wasn't one of them!" I explained. "If for some reason Tony or I ended up in a hostage situation, they'd be able to fix this. I wanted to make sure that that couldn't happen!"

"Understandable." He said, anger clear in his voice. "Just go help Stark and Rogers fix the engine."

I nodded and zapped to the engine, nearly getting shot by Steve in the process. "Hey, it's me!"

"Sorry," he said, pushing me behind him. He hoisted the gun up again and kept shooting at the hostiles.

"Tony, is there anything I can do?" I said into my comm.

"Well, unless you can fly, not really."

I bit my lip. I could fly if I could go full electric, but I'd never done it. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could. 'Come on,' I thought. 'The fate of this entire ship is on your hands!'

All of a sudden I felt a jolt run through my entire body. I opened my eyes and looked down. My bottom half was electric. I put my hand up to where my hair would've been. I felt a buzz and grinned.

I flew out above Tony. "What do you want me to do?"

"I thought you couldn't-" he said, stopping when he noticed me in the air. "Help me push this thing!"

I went across from where he was and began pushing as hard as I could. The blades began to spin faster and faster. I heard Tony yell "Pull the lever!" but nothing happened.

I flew up and out, the blades spinning straight through me. When I saw the lever Tony was talking about, I gasped. Steve was dangling off a cable and the rogue agents were getting closer.

I landed on the ledge and changed back to my normal self. "Take my hand!"

Steve grabbed it and between the two of us, he managed to get up. He pulled the lever and then looked at me. "Thanks."

"No problem," I said, taking a step back.

His eyes widened as my foot slid off of the ledge. Steve lunged forward and grabbed my waist, pulling me into him a little harder than he needed to. My forehead smacked into his chest. "Ouch."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," I said, looking up. His eyes were such a deep blue. How had I never noticed before?

Just then, Tony flew out of the blades and straight into a rogue agent, knocking him out. His suit gave out as he rolled over. "You're welcome."

"Thanks," I said, guiltily stepping away from Steve and toward Tony. "Did you need me to put some charge in that?"

"Sure."

I walked over and placed my hand on the arc reactor and gave it a little juice. "That'll likely only have enough power to get it off."

"Can't you give it more?" Tony whined.

"She can't," Steve defended. "She needs to see a medic."

I looked at him, confused. "Medic?"

"You've been shot."

"I've been grazed."

He stepped closer. "You need a medic. You're not invincible. _I'm_ not even invincible."

"I'm fine," I insisted. He pulled me closer to him and I felt my face turning red.

He brushed some hair back from my face, analyzing. "Why do you have bruises?"

"It's from the blades. When I'm completely electric, bullets and stuff can pass right through me, but it's not without consequence. I get bruises instead of bullet holes or cuts. It's better than dying though," I rambled.

Steve smiled. "Yeah. Definitely better than dying."

"Are you two done flirting?" Tony asked, pulling his helmet off.

Steve instantly removed his hands from me, blushing. "I-I didn't mean-"

"Sure you didn't," Tony said, smirking. "Even if you didn't mean it, you both liked it."

"That is _not_ true!"

_"Agent Coulson is down."_

_"A medical team is on its way to your location."_

_"They're here. They called it."_

The arguing quickly stopped. My eyes filled with tears. Coulson had been the closest thing to a real father that I'd ever had. It stung that my real father was probably the one that killed him. I felt a hand on my back, pulling me into a hug. "It's alright if you cry."

I began to sob into Steve's chest. I knew Tony wouldn't say a word because he'd had a soft spot for Coulson too.

_"I want the available members of the team in the meeting room. Now."_

I pulled away from Steve, grimacing at the wetness I'd left on his shirt. "Sorry."

"It's fine." He said, giving me a soft smile.

I heard Tony snickering behind me. I whirled to face him. "What now?"

"You two are so cute together," he teased.

I leaned back into Steve's arms, which were still wrapped around me. He moved to pull them away, but I put my hands on top of his. "Thanks. It's nice to know that my half-brother cares so much."

"Half-brother?" Tony sputtered.

I grinned and let go of Steve, who quickly retracted his arms. I could feel his embarrassment and felt a little bad about it, but I'd talk to him about it later. "Don't we have a meeting to go to?"


	15. Chapter 15

"Fury, what does she mean when she says half-brother?" Tony said as he walked into the meeting room.

I rolled my eyes as I sat next to Steve. "It means that we have the same mother."

"How?"

"My fath-Loki, um, he...he raped your mother. He said that he knew that she would never kill an unborn child, but that she'd never keep me. I was given up for adoption, and your parents were driving back from the hospital when the car crash happened. My mother was killed during the Hulk's rampage. Loki wanted me sent here. He said I was the Glue that kept the team together."

Fury looked at me, vein in his head throbbing. "And when did he say that?"

I gulped. "When I went down to talk to him."

"When you went down to talk to him?!"

"One, you never told me to stay away. Two, I didn't let him out, he was already opening the cage by himself when I got there. Three, if you had just found out that your father was a crazy Norse god, bent on destroying the Earth, wouldn't you go talk to him too?"

"She's got a point there," Tony commented. Steve nodded too.

Fury sighed. "That's not what I wanted to talk about anyway. I wanted to talk about these. They were in Phil Coulson's jacket. I guess he never did get you to sign them."

He threw the bloody Captain America trading cards on the table. I grimaced and glanced at Steve. He looked broken as he reached for one.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor...I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming," Fury said. Then he sighed and continued. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Fury had barely finished before Tony got up and left the room. Fury watched him leave. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

When Fury left the room, Steve turned to me. "Where do you think Stark went?"

"He's going to be trying to figure out where Loki went. If he thinks anything like me, he's the last place Loki was."

"Why?"

"In order to figure out where Loki went, he's going to want to think like Loki." I said. Steve still looked confused. "Come on."

I led him to the place where Loki's cage had been. Tony was standing there, staring out into the empty space. I turned to Steve. "Or maybe he's thinking about Coulson. Either way, we really should try and figure this out."

Steve nodded and walked out into the open where Tony could see him. "Was he married?"

"No. There was a cellist," he said. "I think."

"I'm sorry," Steve said, looking at the ground. "He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"I should've stayed," I whispered. I heard my voice tremble.

Tony turned to me. "This wasn't your fault."

"Then why was he an idiot?" I challenged, holding back tears. "Coulson was Fury's best agent. He was like a father to me. He was the bravest man I ever knew."

"There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity. He was out of his league. He should've waited. He should have-"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony."

"Right, I've heard that before."

"Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" Steve asked.

I watched Tony stiffen. "We are not soldiers."

All was silent for a moment before Tony began again. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither am I." Steve said. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now, we got to put that behind us and get this done. Loki needs a power source. If we can put together a list-"

"He made it personal."

"That's not the point."

"That is the point. That's Loki's point," he said. I began to smile, seeing the gears working in Tony's brain. "He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart."

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"In where?" I asked.

Steve looked confused. "In Stuttgart. When we-nevermind. You stayed here."

"Oh."

"That was just the previews. This is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered..." Tony stopped. Steve and I exchanged glances with Tony. "Son of a bitch."


	16. Chapter 16

"We need to get to Stark Tower." Tony said as we walked down the hall. "And it needs to be fast."

"How's your suit?" I asked.

"Pretty beaten up. I can fix it though. What I want you lovebirds to do is get Natasha." Tony said, back to his old self.

My face began to change color again. "Alright. Are you sure you don't want me to-"

"No, no. I got it. Just get the Widow and find a jet." Tony said, turning off into a different hallway.

"You didn't correct him." Steve said.

I turned and looked at him. "Correct him?"

"The lovebirds thing. You didn't say anything."

I blushed harder. "Yeah, I know. I figure that with Tony it's easier to just accept the teasing and then he'll stop when it stops getting a reaction. But you didn't correct him either."

Steve began to blush. "Right. Well, er...I-"

"Let's talk about this later, when the world isn't in danger," I said. Steve nodded, his face as red as mine now. "Natasha went to Clint's room. This way."

I turned to the keypad and punched in a code. The door opened and Steve gestured me in. Natasha looked up. "Time to go."

"Go where?"

"We'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?"

The door to the bathroom opened and Clint walked out. His eyes weren't the swirling blue anymore, which made me breathe out a sigh of relief. "I can."

I felt Steve's hand push me behind him a little. I looked up at him and saw that he was looking at Natasha for confirmation. She gave him a nod and then gave me a look. I blushed instantly.

"You got a suit?" Steve asked Clint, still standing in front of me protectively.

Clint nodded. "Yeah."

"Then suit up." He said. Then he left the room, leaving me with smirking agents.

Clint was the first to break the silence as he grabbed his suit and began to put it on. "So, what's going on there?"

"Nothing," I mumbled, the heat still in my cheeks.

"That didn't look like nothing," Natasha commented.

"It...we...I don't know," I said. They looked at me, smirking away. "Whatever. I'm going to-"

"Go find your knight in shining spandex?" Clint said.

I rolled my eyes and left the room to go find Steve. I bumped into him at the end of the hallway. "Why'd you leave?"

"To let him get dressed."

I gave him a look. "You were in the army, right? I'm sure you saw plenty of other men change before. You left me to get interrogated."

"What?"

"Your protectiveness? They're top agents for a reason. They aren't stupid." I tried to hint. Steve still looked confused. "They know that there's...something going on between us."

"Oh. And when I left the room-"

"-they tried to get it out of me."

"Sorry," he said, grimacing. Then he looked me up and down. "Do you need anything else to fight?"

"I'd love a gun, but they refuse to give me one." I said, pouting.

Steve was grinning. "That's because you're too powerful as it is."

"Right. But you're the only one under my spell," I said, batting my eyelashes at him.

His look went from loving to frightened. "What? I'm under a spell?"

"No. I was trying to-that was a joke."

"Oh. Well, I assumed that with all the magic Loki can do that you'd be able to do some too," he explained.

A light clicked in my brain. "You're completely right. If he can do magic, then so can I. Anything that he does, I _should_ be able to do, right?"

"Right."

I grinned. Then I looked up at Steve, who looked lost. "Nevermind. Let's go get your shield."

"How do you know I need it?"

"Because you're Captain America," I teased. "You need your shield."

I led him to where all the weaponry was kept. As he reached for his shield I saw Natasha and Clint walk in. Clint ran over, grabbed his bow kit, and began strapping everything on. I felt someone tap on my shoulder. When I turned, a sheath filled with throwing knives was thrust into my hands.

"I figured you'd need a weapon along with your abilities," Natasha said, strapping on her gun holsters and tucking a few knives into her suit.

I gave her a smile and strapped it on. We walked down the hall and straight onto a jet. Only one agent was onboard. As we walked on, he said, "Hey, you guys aren't authorized to be in here."

"Son, just don't." Steve told him.

The agent shook his head. "I can't allow you guys-"

When he heard the buzzing he looked around Steve and saw me holding a ball of electricity. I gave him my deadly smile. "You have two options. _You_ can either get off this jet and stay the way you are, or you can try to keep _us_ off the jet and be electrocuted. Your choice."

"I'll just let you stay." He said before running off.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen." Clint said. "Where did you learn _that_?"

"The threatening was from you and Natasha. The smile was...my dad."

"I thought you didn't know your dad. You said he never stayed with your mother." Clint said.

My eyes widened. "That's right, you were under. To be brief, Loki is my real dad, Maria Stark is my mom making Tony my half-brother, and I was adopted."

Clint's eyes widened the slightest bit. "Loki kept saying how he wanted to find his family on the ship, but I just assumed that he meant Thor."

"Yeah. But I'm still on the side of the Avengers, so we're good here. Start the jet." I said.

Clint and Natasha both went up to the front and began flipping switches. Clint looked back at me for a second. "You take more after your mother." Then he went back to trying to get us off the ground.

"Why don't you just fly? That's what Tony's doing," Steve said.

I shook my head. "I'm afraid that if...if I'm the first one there, Loki will put me under his spell. None of you...except maybe Thor...would be able to handle me when I'm at my worst."

"We have liftoff," Clint said from the front. "Let's take Loki down."


	17. Chapter 17

Clint and Natasha tried their best to get us there as quick as possible, but Tony's Ironman suit was much faster than the jet. I was anxious to help because I felt that a lot of this was my fault. But, I was trying to figure out why Loki would've told me that I was the glue that kept the team together.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Steve asked, snapping me back to reality.

I bit my lip. "Why would Loki tell me that I'm the one that holds the team together? I don't understand. If he wants his plan to succeed, he needs me out of the picture. But now that he told me that, you guys are going to try to keep me safe."

"Maybe that's what he wants. If we try to keep you safe, one of us might get hurt in the process." He suggested.

I shrugged. "I don't think that's it. It's almost like he _wants_ us to win. Maybe...maybe he's being influenced by the Tesseract too. It would make sense. Thor seemed shocked that Loki would want to kill so many people. Maybe he's not as bad as he seems. In all the lore I read-"

"Lucy, if you start doubting him now, he might use that to his advantage. Maybe that's why he told you that you're the glue," Clint said from the front.

"I guess you're right."

"Alright, we're almost there. Ready?" Clint asked.

Steve and I nodded from the back. Natasha flipped on her mic. "Stark, we're on your three, headed northeast."

"What, did you stop for drive-through? Swing up Park, I'm going to lay them out for you."

As we made our way to the location, Clint began to flip even more switches. My nerves were out of control, and I heard myself buzzing. The gun on the jet managed to take out a lot of the aliens that were trailing Tony.

I felt my teeth chattering, something I did only when I was nervous. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. 'Just get in the right mindset.' When I opened my eyes again, I felt so much calmer.

"Nat?"

"I see him."

We spun the jet to fire at Loki, who threw Thor down and shot a stream of blue energy at us. The wing caught fire and we began to fall.

"Lucy, can you do anything?" Widow called out.

I concentrated hard, taking over the jet's controls. I managed to keep it steady as we crashed, but I couldn't bring it back up. When we finally landed, Hawkeye and Widow yanked off the headsets. We climbed out of the jet and I gasped at what I saw.

"We got to get back up there!" Cap said.

We started to run back to the building when a metallic groan made us stop. I looked up and watched a huge, millipede like creature emerge from the portal. "How are we supposed to stop that?"

"Stark, are you seeing this?"

"Seeing. Still working on believing. Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?"

"Just keep me posted."

Those of us on the ground ran and took temporary cover behind an upside-down cab. Hawkeye looked at us. "We've got civilians still trapped up there." Something flew overhead, blowing up every other car.

"Loki," Cap said. Then he turned to us. "They're fish in a barrel down there."

A blue bolt shattered the window next to his face and he ducked down. Widow stood and began firing her guns at the alien creatures. Hawkeye ran across to get better coverage so he could pop up and shoot arrows.

Widow turned to Cap. "We got this. It's good. Go."

"Do you think you can hold them off?" He asked.

Hawkeye turned around, hand tightening around his bow. "Captain, it would be my genuine pleasure." He then shot an alien with a short-out arrow.

Cap nodded, then glanced at me. I gave him a smile. "I'll help them. GO."

He nodded again and then jumped off the bridge. I whirled around, an idea forming in my head. "Hawkeye, if your short-out arrow worked on them, how well would an electrical storm work?"

"I'd say very well. Do it," he grunted as he and Natasha kept firing.

I nodded and zapped up to the top of one of the buildings. I tried to concentrate, but a bunch of aliens jumped up there and started to attack me. I began whirling and punching, using my electric charges in my punches.

Soon enough, I realized that there were just too many of them and if I kept this up alone, I'd likely wear myself out before I even made a dent in the army. I flew back down to Widow and Hawk in time to see Thor wipe out a bunch of aliens with lightning.

"What's the story upstairs?"

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable."

"Thor's right. We got to deal with these guys." I heard Ironman say over my comm.

"How do we do this?"

"As a team."


	18. Chapter 18

"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor said.

I snorted as Hawk said, "Yeah? Well, get in line."

"Save it," Cap said, effectively ending the argument. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to-"

Cap stopped as Bruce rode up on a motorcycle. I smiled at him as we approached. "So, this all seems horrible."

"I've seen worse." Widow said, clearly referring to her encounter with the Hulk.

Bruce grimaced. "Sorry."

"No, we could use a little worse."

"Stark, we got him."

"Banner?"

"Just like you said."

"Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."

Ironman flew around the corner, the millipede alien following him. Thor snarled and spun his hammer in his hand. Natasha quipped, "I don't see how that's a party."

As they both got closer, Bruce began to walk toward them. Cap called out. "Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

"That's my secret, Captain." Bruce called over his shoulder. "I'm always angry."

As he turned, he turned into the Hulk and threw a punch at the millipede alien. He punched its nose into the ground, causing the rest of it to flip over. As it was flipping, Ironman yelled, "Hold on!" He shot a missile into it's open underbelly, causing it to explode. Cap covered himself and Widow with his shield. Thor threw up an armor-clad arm to protect himself and Hawk ran for cover. I was able to switch into my electric mode, but not before I was burned a little. Luckily, no one seemed to notice that I'd gotten hurt.

As soon as the millipede alien had been destroyed, the rest of the Chitari began to screech. Hulk simply roared back at them as Ironman landed between him and Cap.

"Guys," Natasha said. We all looked up to see more of the millipedes coming out of the portal.

Ironman looked at Cap. "Call it Captain."

"All right, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Can you give me a lift?" Hawk asked Ironman.

"Right. Better clench up Legolas."

They took off and Cap continued. "Thor, I want you and Lucy to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got lightning and electricity. Light the bastards up."

We nodded our agreement and took off. Thor headed for the Empire State Building, so I landed next to him and began to charge up. He held out his hammer and a storm cloud began approaching us. The lightning Thor summoned hit the building. I realized that he was trying to use it as a lightning rod, so I put everything I had into building up the lightning and charge. Then I grabbed the end of the hammer as he pointed it toward the sky and let loose. A huge bolt of lightning exploded out from his hammer and flew toward the portal. Many of the aliens simply exploded on impact.

"Ready for another round?" I asked Thor warily. He was clutching his side, wincing a bit. When I asked that, he shook his head.

"Unfortunately, I don't have enough energy to keep this up."

"Where are you hurt?"

"My side. My brother stabbed me with a small knife. It shall heal, but it will take time."

I nodded. "All right. Well, let's go take those on."

I pointed down to Sixth Street, where an entire squadron of aliens was congregating. Thor nodded and began to spin his hammer. I grinned at him and zapped down to where the aliens were and began to fight. I quickly realized that if I sparked up a knife and threw it at an alien, it took out those within a five foot radius.

While I was fighting, I saw Widow fly by on one of the alien's machines, but I left it alone. I figured that she knew what she was doing. Besides, I was busy enough as it was. Thor looked up and saw another millipede alien. I saw on his face that he wanted to go after it.

"Go. I can handle myself here."

He nodded and flew off, clearly trusting my judgement. I continued wailing on the aliens, and I heard the millipede alien go down. I smiled, but got caught off guard. One of the aliens shot me with their spears and it shocked me out of being fully charged. I dropped to the ground, grabbing one of my throwing knives and aimed. When I let it go, it flew straight into the power center of the spear, causing it to blow up.

I was thrown backwards about thirty feet with nothing to protect myself. I landed inside a car, the blast throwing me through the windshield. Somewhere in all the fighting I'd even lost my comm unit, so I couldn't let the team know my location. In the distance, I heard the Hulk roar, and it wasn't an "I'm winning" kind of thing. We were losing this fight.


	19. Chapter 19

I crawled out of the car, determined to find at least one member of my team. But when I looked up at Stark Tower, I knew what I had to do. I switched back into my full electric mode and flew up into the Tower. I found Loki lying on the ground and there were lots of divots in the concrete floor next to him.

"What happened to you?" I asked as he began crawling toward the stairs.

"Your beast threw me around like I was lifeless," Loki said, scowling at me. "I did nothing wrong."

"You released an alien race onto Manhattan! If the Avengers wouldn't have been here, you would've sentenced the human race to death! How on _Earth_ is that doing nothing wrong?!"

"I was merely a pawn! I realize that now! Thanos only wanted me to find the Tesseract and open the portal! He had no use for me once that was done! He _knew_ that you were all going to come after me, and I suspect that he was hoping that you'd kill me so that he wouldn't have to do it himself!"

I looked into his eyes, shocked. "What?"

"I was a pawn. He used my need for revenge to get his armies on Earth." Loki repeated.

I looked at him. He was definitely telling the truth, but that still didn't excuse what he'd done. I simply nodded and then zapped up to the roof.

Widow and Dr. Selvig were up there. Widow had Loki's scepter and was pressing against the force field around the Tesseract. "I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."

"Do it!" I said from behind her, taking her extra comm from her stash.

"No, wait," I heard Ironman say.

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Cap said. Boy was it refreshing to hear his voice.

"I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute," he said. "And I know just where to put it."

"Stark, you know that's a one-way trip." Cap said.

I didn't hear him answer. Tears formed in my eyes as I realized what he was doing. He was taking one for the team, trading his life for the lives of millions. My eyes filled with tears, but I blinked them back, focusing on keeping the aliens away from Widow and Selvig.

When I heard the Ironman suit, I looked up just in time to see him fly into the portal and disappear. There was silence for a few moments, all of us waiting for him to come back out of the portal.

"Come on, Stark."

Another few beats of silence before I heard, "Close it."

Widow thrust the spear into the cube, effectively closing down the portal. Just as it closed, I saw Tony fall out of the portal. Natasha and I exchanged smiles before I realized something. "He's not flying. He's actually falling!"

Before I could even charge up, the Hulk came out of nowhere and caught Tony, gently setting him down. I wanted to go down and see him, but Natasha put a hand on my shoulder. "You're hurt."

As she said that, the pain began to sear through my body. I cried out in pain and fell to the ground. "Thanks for reminding me."

Natasha instantly dropped beside me, pulling things out of my back. I didn't even want to know what those things were, based on Dr. Selvig's reaction. When I heard the Hulk roar, I calmed down a little, assuming that Tony was okay.

After a few minutes, we all gathered in the Tower in time to see Loki climbing up the stairs. He froze when he realized we were there and turned slowly. Clint pulled an arrow back, silently warning Loki not to move.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now." Loki said, looking in Tony's direction. I didn't bother asking what it meant, considering I'd been the one with the least interaction with Loki. The Hulk simply growled a little at him.

Thor began to handcuff him with some fancy looking handcuffs and a muzzle-type thing. Loki simply let his brother do this with no protesting. When he was all chained up, Thor stood back a little and I stepped forward.

"What you did is wrong. Thor says that you'll have to face Asguardian justice, but he also says that I'll be able to come visit you. I hope that I'll be able to convince you that what you did was wrong. It wasn't all your fault, but you still could've said no." I told him. Then I hugged him. "But I'm still your daughter. I hope that we can fix our relationship as well."

When I pulled back, I thought I saw genuine gratefulness in Loki's eyes, but I couldn't be too sure. Then Natasha spoke up. "Fury says that they're sending in two helicopters to get us to a SHIELD facility to check our wounds."

As she said that, we all heard the helicopters land on the road. Thor grabbed Loki's arm, steering him towards the stairs. Tony and I jumped out the window and gently flew down to the ground. The agents greeted us, but scowled when Loki stepped out of the building.

"Why can't I fly there? My suit is fine."

I turned around to see Tony arguing with one of the agents and rolled my eyes. I grabbed his arm and pulled the charge out of his suit. He groaned when he realized what I'd done. "Now I can't even move to get onto the helicopter."

I laughed and put just enough charge in that he could get onto the helicopter, but not enough that he could fly to where we were going. "Now let's go."


	20. Chapter 20

After a few days of everyone getting treated, we were released. SHIELD started to say that they wanted to keep the Tesseract and Loki (so that he could answer for his crimes) but all it took was one look from Thor before they backed off.

We all headed out to see Loki and Thor off. Before they left for good, I gave them both big hugs. Thor smiled and bent down until we were eye level. "Any time that you want to visit Asguard, just tell Heimdall to open the Bifrost. As soon as I get Loki situated, I'll arrange it that you can visit whenever you'd like."

"Thanks, Thor!" I squealed, hugging him tightly. Then I turned to Loki and hugged him. "I'll make sure that I visit you as soon as I help Tony rebuild the Tower."

I couldn't see his mouth, but I saw a bit of a smile in his eyes. Then I let go and moved over next to Steve who wrapped an arm around me. I saw Tony glance over, but he didn't say anything.

"What now?" I asked as soon as Thor and Loki had left.

"Well, I'm thinking that I'm going to rebuild the Tower. Only this time, I'm going to make it Avengers Tower. You'll each have a floor there, so if you want to stay, you can." Tony said, glancing around at all of us.

Bruce nodded. "I'm going to be helping him rebuild, and when it's finished, I'm going to move in. We are going to be working on experiments together."

"Aww, Science Bros." I said, smiling. Tony and Bruce simply laughed. Then I turned to Nat and Clint. "What about you two?"

"As much as I'd like to see your relationship blossom," Clint started, making Steve and I blush, "Nat and I have to head back to the Helicarrier and fill out our reports. I'm pretty sure that Fury's going to make you fill one out too."

I groaned. "Well, he can send it to the Tower, because I'm going to be helping rebuild as well."

Clint nodded and then got into a car with Nat. They drove off, waving as they left. I felt Steve pull his arm off of me and whirled to face him. "Where are you going?"

"I think that I'm going to explore a little," he said. "Stark was nice enough to buy me a motorcycle, something that I'm used to. But I promise that I'll be back in a few days to help rebuild."

I looked down at the ground, disappointed that he wasn't staying. He tilted my chin up so that our eyes could meet. I glanced over at Tony and Bruce who had moved over to the car, giving us space. When I glanced back at Steve, our noses were touching.

"Just tell me if I'm moving to fast," he said as he pulled me close.

I shook my head. "Not fast enough." Then I closed the gap between us, pressing our lips together. We stayed like that until I had to pull away to breathe. "Just...come back, okay?"

"Always." He said before kissing me one more time. Then he got on his motorcycle and gave me a wave, driving off.

I hopped into the convertible with Tony and Bruce. Tony turned and gave me a shit-eating grin that made me uncomfortable. "What?"

"You know that he's about 75 years older than you right?"

"Shut up and drive."

"Hey, I'm just trying to be the older brother you never knew you had." He said, starting the car.

I turned my head away from him, rolling my eyes. My thoughts immediately turned to Steve. "I miss you already."

**Well, that's it. However, I am planning on doing a sequel to this, so keep your eyes peeled for The Key!**


	21. Author's Note

**I've posted the first chapter to The Key! I hope that all of you read it and give me feedback. And I'd like to thank Chester-Grey for the informative review. I tried to fix the Mary-Sue-ness a little, but there is some of it that you'd understand if you knew what I knew. Anyway, go! Read the sequel and review!**


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